Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Why Princess Zelda is named after Zelda Fitzgerald
Nothing screams epic high fantasy quite like the roaring twenties and severe marital disputes. The creator of the legendary franchise needed a name for his…
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The Overwatch DJ who heals with music
Instead of using bandages or medicine, this character just blasts high-tempo electronic tunes so aggressively that his teammates literally feel better. It is…
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The StarCraft session that lasted 50 hours
Esports are arguably more dangerous than extreme physical activities if you completely lack a survival instinct. In 2005, a 28-year-old man in Taegu sat at an…
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How penguins could bankrupt your Zoo Tycoon park
You bought one male and one female penguin thinking they would be a cute attraction. Within twenty minutes, your entire hard drive is crying. In Zoo Tycoon,…
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Why splitting tens can ruin a winning hand
Nothing screams 'I hate winning' quite like tearing apart a twenty. You take a nearly unbeatable position and voluntarily divide it in half, usually rewarding…
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The game achievement that takes five years to unlock
There is a specific accolade granted only if you completely ignore the title for five straight years. It physically tracks your real-world absence.
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Perfect scores of 501 in darts require nine throws
Achieving a nine-darter is the holy grail of pub games. It requires such terrifying precision and mental calculus that executing it usually implies you have…
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Why Tomb Raider suddenly throws a T. rex at you
Who needs narrative consistency when you have a prehistoric apex predator? The original 1996 Tomb Raider is ostensibly a game about an archaeologist exploring…
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Why American foosball has three goalies
While authentic European setups respect the sport with a solitary goalkeeper, the American versions slapped three men on the final rod. It totally eliminates…
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Halo multiplayer relies on incredibly sticky aim assist
To actively make dual analog sticks viable for fast-paced combat, the crosshair aggressively glues itself to targets. It essentially means the console is…
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Eight-ball scratches surrender total cue ball control
Scratching on a standard shot is bad, but doing it in eight-ball means your opponent gets ball-in-hand. You literally have to stand there and watch them place…
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Dreamcast memory cards could connect to each other
In a truly bizarre attempt at social networking, these tiny storage blocks allowed you to plug them into each other directly. You could essentially trade tiny…
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Carcassonne players place wooden meeples to claim points
Dropping these iconic little humanoid figures onto freshly placed cardboard tiles is the only way to secure a location. Once a meeple is committed to a city…
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Capcom originally meant Capsule Computers
Because naming your company after a pill sounds perfectly normal in corporate boardrooms. The name was chosen to reflect their early focus on arcade machines,…
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Pung declarations strictly require three identical tiles
You cannot just vaguely assemble similar pieces. Calling a pung demands three exact matches, meaning you spend half the game obsessively staring at a discard…
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GoldenEye's split screen ruined stealth
In local split-screen deathmatches, the sheer absolute lack of privacy meant everyone constantly stared at their opponents' quadrant. This entirely eradicated…
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Why German Half-Life replaced soldiers with robots
Bureaucracy yields the strangest artistic compromises. To comply with strict regional guidelines in Germany, the original Half-Life replaced human military…
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In this game, you paint the world to see it
You wake up in a world of pure white nothingness, and your only tool is a messy paintball gun. The Unfinished Swan requires you to blindly fire ink globs just…
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Sonic the Hedgehog was almost a rabbit
Sega's iconic mascot was almost a completely different, infinitely less cool animal. Before they settled on a hyperactive blue rodent, developers wanted a…
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Direct sunlight completely bleaches printed inks within weeks
The sun hates your vibrant colors. Ultraviolet radiation breaks down the chemical bonds in industrial pigments, turning your beautiful tabletop displays into…
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Dinosaur simulators requiring four hundred gigabytes
Preserving the prehistoric era apparently takes a horrific toll on modern data infrastructure. Ark: Survival Evolved, fully loaded with its various maps and…
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In Ark, Your Character Can Eat 30 Raw Steaks
To maintain stamina, your character can casually consume thirty uncooked steaks back-to-back without batting an eye. It completely ignores all basic concepts…
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How Candy Crush turned a Bejeweled-style game into a fortune
Originality is incredibly dead, but microtransactions are forever. King took the exact match-three mechanics of the early 2000s hit Bejeweled, plastered it…
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Riku translates to solid land in Japanese
Every sky needs a foundation, even if that foundation occasionally gets possessed by darkness. To complement his best friend's aerial namesake, this…
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